The dream

This has happened before—in various ways, shapes and forms—but I’ve never written about it. In the wee morning hours of the morning I had a dream that hubs and I had a very chubby baby boy. We decided to name him Samuel and to call him “Sam,” for short. (Which is exactly the kind of one syllable nickname I think I’d love to shout during a soccer game.) I picked him up and hugged him and felt like my heart might burst with love.

Do you know how the dream ended? I was getting out my phone to text my friend in NYC, my one and only friend who knows all about our IF stuff, to tell her it finally happened. We finally had a baby. I was literally TEXTING her the news, and as I typed the words I woke up.

At first I thought it really happened—that we had a beautiful baby named Sam. For maybe 20 seconds I was in bed enjoying this blissful feeling of relief and joy and love and excitement. And then I turned over and saw the rain pounding against the bedroom window and I remembered: We don’t have a baby. We aren’t pregnant. I don’t ovulate. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. The IUI didn’t work. I’m on BCPs. (Seriously, you can think all of that stuff in an instant.)

What I am: perhaps slightly-tearfully-semi-depressed. Kinda struggling to deal with myself or work or normal life stuff. Going crazy on the bench. Aching for a little Sam, yet so very very very far away.

Meandering through June

I ran 8 miles in the pouring rain early on Saturday morning. I felt slow and heavy, and my legs still burned with the after-shocks of the hard (untrained!) effort of running the race last weekend. But I reveled in every step. I felt relief that the storm kept the Moms and Dads with their baby joggers off the lake path. I sloshed along and felt my lungs searing, my quads burning and my feet freezing; it all felt good. And then I walked/limped into our apartment, looking like a drowned rat, and I poured a mug of steaming coffee, cuddled into a cozy sweatshirt, and just sat there sort of staring into space: too tired and numb to think or to be scared or to feel sad.

Running is my escape.

*****

Hubs and I joined a CSA for the first time this summer! We’re sharing a weekly delivery of farm-fresh produce with three other friends. The first shipment…..romaine lettuce (sorta a snore, we’re using for side salads), spinach (we used it as a topping on a homemade deep dish pizza last night), kale (sauteed with shallots and garlic and lemon and served alongside leftover grilled chicken after a late night at work on Friday). With the leftover spinach, we’ll make this awesome bean dish, which is hearty enough to serve as a main course. The real toughie in the box was rhubarb, which hubs and I have never cooked with. We’re making a strawberry-rhubarb crisp tonight to follow hubs’s pulled pork and my homemade potato salad (with real mayo, no store stuff!).

You can see why I really should run 8 miles every day, right?

****

Meanwhile, we spent Memorial Day weekend planting veggies, herbs and some flowers. We also bought some cushions for the wrought iron furniture on our (tiny) front and back decks. We’ve live in this apartment for three years and had never done all of this! OMG, now I could literally live (with a book and a glass of vino) on my back deck. It. Rocks. (Dudes, I went to Home Depot four times and Target two times in the course of three days!)

I must say that I melted a bit watching hubs get down and dirty with the plants as we potted them last weekend. He keeps checking on them, too, making sure they have enough water and remarking on the weather and how the sun or clouds might effect them. 🙂 Ohhh, my sensitive little heart. Imagine if I ever get to see him with our baby?

****

We’ve also been decently social lately. (Ugh, I’ve been such a little hermit. Especially with the break…I just…I have nothing to say to anyone right now and it’s horrible, I know, but it’s how I feel.) We went to a birthday party for a college friend on Tuesday night. I was sooooooo not in the mood to be social and celebratory, but I sacked up. It ended up being a fun party and it was distracting. It majorly helped that the group we were hanging with was mostly singletons, so babiesbabiesbabiesbabies = not on their minds. Thursday night we went to a spur of the moment dinner at a restaurant called Schwa with some friends. That was freaking awesome. (More on that in another post. We went to THE BEST restaurant in Chicago/possibly the country and it’s not really fair I’m acting all, Ohhh, whatevs, I’m being social about one of the best meals of my entire life!!!)

*****

We have our consult with the new RE on Thursday morning. I’m sure I’ll get nervous in a few days, but for now I’m just excited. I wonder what this new RE will think of my treatment thus far? I’m worried he’ll look at my nine months with clinic #1 and say, “I cannot freaking believe they had you on Clomid three times given your hormone levels!!!!” or something like that. I’m equally worried he WON’T say something along those lines. 🙂 Oh geez, can I give an RE a break?

Anyway, T-minus 3-days until the Dr. Awesome consult. Looking forward to the appointment takes a bit of the sting out of my daily cocktail of BCPs, Pre-Naties, supp supps, etc. I’m gonna run and cook and garden my way through Thursday.

Alas, the post I’ve been trying to avoid

Hello my bloggie friends. Sorry I’ve been AWOL. This break is kicking my as*! I have all sorts of fun stuff to write up—how I’m running and riding my bike like crazy, how I spent the weekend planting veggies and herbs and flowers and otherwise beautifying our back and front porches, how I’ve been cooking up a storm, how work has been insane but awesome lately—but the truth is that whenever I try to write a post, my frustration, fear and general malaise get in the way.

And I can’t bear to dwell—via writing—on all of those feelings, so I’ve been stifling myself quite a bit. I am sad. I am scared. I am sick and tired of doing nothing. I feel ill looking at the baby stroller in my 6-flat apartment building’s lobby every time I walk up or down the stairs. (Dude, when is that kid going to be too big for the stroller?) I am dreading the wedding in two weeks in which I will be trapped in a tiny B&B with all of my  new-Mom college friends and their babies. I gave up acupuncture (for the second time, haha) because I’ve started to dread the weekly reminder that no matter how many needles are stuck into my body, it still doesn’t work. I feel like everything is a reminder of how busted I am and how scared I am that I will never be the lucky bloggie on the other side. Even reading blogs and logging onto Twitter is a reminder. There is so much joy and hope and happiness out there and I feel like a dark rain cloud brooding in the distance.

I know that this is mostly the break month talking: I just have too much time to be “in” my head and it turns me into a selfish, fragile, shadow of the person I thought I was, who clings to hubs for dear life. It feels like the whole world is moving forward and I’m just STUCK, trying to shake off the fear and the envy. I know this is some SERIOUS drama for a stupid bench month. I’m sure there are folks reading this and thinking, Geez! Relax already! Eh. To all of you: I totally and completely agree. It’s just, you know, I don’t get a chance to ovulate very often and, darnit, I am struggling.

And, alas, I’ve succeeded in writing the exact post I’ve been trying to avoid…I just had to re-title it. Unfortunately, right now, writing about my life makes me feel worse about it—not better. (Maybe when I press “publish” I’ll feel a little better. Or maybe you guys can cheer me up just a tad. And it’s okay if not. 🙂 )

Just wanted to wave hello and assure you that I am chugging along. And that I’m totally rooting for, and thinking about, all of you, even if I’m not as active and talkative on your blogs as I so want to be. I love you guys and I’m cheering for you from my little corner of the universe! I’m sure I’ll bounce back, probably—as my bench months tend to go—the closer I get to the end. xo

I miss the old me

The BFN on Wednesday was expected but of course it still sucked. I got back into bed and quietly cried while hubs hugged me. But I think I bounced back pretty well. I talked myself into focusing on the positives of the cycle and tried to see the BFN as bad luck….not further proof that my body is f-ed up. I have to work hard not to think about it too much. Not to wonder if there’s more bad stuff going on with my body that I don’t know about. “Normal couples only have a 20% chance of conception each cycle.” Haven’t we all been told that a bazillion times? I know it’s true. But normal couples don’t have the meds to produce multiple follicles. And they aren’t taking Ovidrel to ensure a strong ovulation. And they aren’t having expertly prepped swimmers deposited into their uterus at the perfect time.

You know?

So I wonder…..what went wrong in May? Did my mature follie(s) hold a good egg or was it empty? Did I even ovulate? Did we time the IUI correctly? Did we fertilize an egg? Did the embryo divide correctly? Was my lining too thin for implantation? Did an embie try to implant? Did it start to and then stop? What went wrong? Everything? Nothing? Bad luck? And so on and so forth.

******

So I went to CD2 monitoring very early this morning and unfortunately the injects left me with a cyst on the right ovary. Once again, I expected it. I mean, I pretty much talk about my cysts and benched months ad nauseum. But it still hit me pretty hard. I was secretly hoping for a miracle….that I could begin injecting tomorrow night and numb myself—to the questions I posed above—with a fresh start and some hope.

But my body let me down again. My body can’t ovulate. It doesn’t produce LH like it should. It has trouble with its lining. It can’t get pregnant. And it develops cysts and benches me. Over and over again.

*****

I used to be very proud of my body. How it can run marathons and bike for hours and swim more than a mile and walk all day. How it carries groceries and lifts weights effortlessly. How it sits at a desk all day and works hard. How it sleeps soundly. How it still can play soccer and basketball and tennis 13 years after I stopped playing competitively. How much love it is capable of. How motivated and disciplined and overachieving it can be. This year has slowly eroded my confidence and love for my body. My body keeps letting me down. It feels weak and fragile and jealous and lonely and….broken. I don’t even recognize it most days. Especially not on monitoring days.

So I’m doing something crazy tomorrow morning. I got a last minute entry into the 10-mile Memorial Day Weekend run I’ve done every year since I moved to Chicago. It will undoubtedly be my slowest 10 miles, EVER. I am not trained or even close to prepared. I’ve run once in the past 2.5 weeks. But I think I can finish the distance and I want to participate in a race—where I feel happy and comfortable and hopeful and excited and joyful. I want to feel the sore muscles all weekend long and remember that my body can accomplish awesome things.

I need to remind myself what my body is good at. Because I am losing faith in it by the day and it’s breaking my heart.

Rookie ramblings

The wedding weekend in NYC was wonderful and a very, very nice distraction. I am now home and a whopping 12 days into the 2ww! 🙂 I DID end up jogging with my good friend over the weekend (who is incredibly dear to me but does not know about my IF because I seem to only be able to talk to you bloggies about it) and it felt awesome. I took it very EZ and drank lots and lots of water during the run and am fairly certain I didn’t thwart any potential implantation.

Speaking of implantation, I still have zero signs that we’re finally pregnant. On the night of 8DPO I *thought* I might’ve had a trace of that twinge-y lower abdomen stuff many women describe, but it only lasted one evening and, honestly, I was thinking about my uterus so intently that night that it’s more likely I either a) imagined it, or b) was so hyper-aware of my body that I noticed something that’s always there anyways.

And that, my friends, is it….so whatevs! I have zero desire to test early. I’ve decided folks who test early must have a strong suspicion that they’re knocked up so they’re really excited to see that BFP. Me? I’m still hoping for a miracle and praying for a symptom here or there, but mostly trying to prepare my psyche and heart for Wednesday morning’s result. (My clinic only does a Beta if you get a positive HPT; I need to go buy one.)

When in doubt, which is 97.7% of the time, I cling to this awesome post by Leslie as proof that—depsite what blog-land and message boards suggest—it IS definitely possible to be knocked up without any symptoms. Whatever happens, I will take the 2ww to being benched ANY TIME. Of COURSE I would be over the moon to have beginner’s luck, but simply living with the potential that our hopes and dreams could finally be realized has been truly amazing. A couple times I even daydreamed about what we might name our little one. I haven’t allowed myself to do that since last summer when I blissfully and naively thought the answer to my lack-of-period-woes was a 10-day dose of Provera. I have absolutely treasured these two weeks of feeling—for the first legit time—like we’ve had a shot at starting our little family.

Ups & downs

Dr. K did my CD14 ultrasound this morning. She was not pysched with rightie. My 14mm-er lead follie hasn’t grown at all and now I’ve got “a ton” of 12mm-ers, “like an IVF cycle.” Not good. Leftie is hanging in with two follies at about 15-16mm. (Dr. K doesn’t normally do ultrasounds so she warned me that her measurements are probably a little off.) And leftie has a few little guys in the 11-12mm range, which is “fine.” My lining is not fluffing…he’s stuck at 6.6mm.

So, lots and lots of action, but no mature follicles so no trigger tonight. I guess this explains why my ovaries are achey and my lower abdomen feels bloaty/crampy/stabby. Blaaah!

Anyway, she said the problem is that we can’t get my lead follies to mature and meanwhile a bunch of other follies are catching up. She said we might have to cancel thanks to all of those little 12mm-ers. (Noooooo!) She was already talking about how in the next cycle we’ll probably stim with a lower dose of Gonal-F. Sigh. (I’m already down to 75 units, as of Friday.) Kind of a bummer to be talking about the next cycle, right? Especially because I know I’ll have cysts after this one ends, so “next cycle” means July. I felt tears welling up in my eyes during the u/s. I told her I’ve been with their clinic for eight [freaking!] months and only triggered once—I really, really, really want to ovulate and finish this cycle. And in my head I was thinking, Dude, my lining is quite thin by RE standards, do you really think I’m going to come out of this as octo-Mom? Give me a chance!

I don’t know if we’ll make it to IUI land. I so want to. So so so so badly. I’m hoping beyond hope that the biggish guys on the left make it to 18mm tomorrow—so that I can trigger. And that all of the 12mm-ers on the right stay put—so that I’m not cancelled.

I know I’m supposed to think/be positive and I still am! I know it’s great that my follies are responding to the meds. I know it’s awesome that my lining is the best it’s ever been. I know first cycles of injects are usually “exploratory and diagnostic.” So, that is all good stuff. But I couldn’t help but hope I might have a shot this month. And I know the conditions are not ideal…I don’t have any biggie follies (the kind that hold GOOD EGGS!) and my lining hasn’t reached the magic 8mm thickness. And I know even *perfect* cycles often don’t yield BFPs. So it’s getting harder to hope that my looooong-awaited injects cycle might actually work.

Sorry for the lame, data-heavy post!! I promise to post about something more interesting soon. For now, it’s all ovaries, all the time. 🙂

Slow & steady

CD12 monitoring update! One rightie follie at 14mm and two lefties at 13mm. And a bunch of 10mm-ers have entered the scene. (Gulp! stay chill and let the leaders continue maturing, little ones!) My lining apparently got a big head from all the praise he received on Wednesday. (Yes, my lining is a “he.” I don’t know why either!) He’s up to 6.4mm, which isn’t much fluffing over two days….but it’s in the right direction and I will not be greedy about this. I am thankful for any lining at all.

My follies are taking their time, but I am very happy with their progress. Dr. C and Dr. K want me to be a slooow and steaaady stimmer and that’s exactly what’s happening. There a dozen cliched analogies I’ve considered that keep me positive about the way I’m being stimmed. You know, like how people who start out too fast in marathons are the ones who bonk and hit the wall at mile 17; it’s the folks who pace themselves carefully who arrive running through the finish line with smiles on their faces. Or how cookies that are baked in a too-hot oven are the ones that are burnt on the top and cold and squishy inside. Much better to cook them evenly and all the way through. Right? RIGHT!

Now that I have some follie action, I would really like to get to IUI land. There. I said it. (I hope that doesn’t jinx me.)

Okay, so even though I think about my uterine lining and ovaries nine out of every 10 minutes (can you imagine me if I ever manage to make it to a 2ww?!), there are other things happening in my world. Dinners with friends, a ton of cool projects at work, a cocktail party on Saturday night, errands this weekend (noooo freelancing, yip!), house stuff, yada yada. And here is my latest and most favorite distraction, my new background music while commuting:

I’ve mentioned before how hubs makes me two CDs filled with tunes and artists I don’t already know for Christmas every year. Josh Ritter is one of those artists that made it onto a CD a couple years ago, and he just came out with a new album, called So Runs the World Away. I am totally digging the song “Change of Time.” Buy it on iTunes, you will not be disappointed!

Deep breaths

I am back from a blissful, calming, lovely spa weekend with my Mom. I hiked, I ate healthfully, I lounged by the pool, I went to yoga classes and did all the other wonderful relax-y stuff you do when you’re not sitting in your cubicle, or your apartment, or your RE’s office. It was awesome and cathartic. My goal was to chillax and not think about IF for a few days and I mostly succeeded. I did not blog, I did not surf my fave blogs, I did not Tweet, I did not Google. But I did think about all of you; I couldn’t help it! And while I’m not a religious person, I was saying my own version of prayers for each of you, wherever you may be in this IF journey.

The coolest thing about the trip = the meditation classes I checked out. Meditation is pretty much the antithesis of me. I am constantly in motion….fidgeting, running around, always always always on to the next. I think it’s a manifestation of my worst quality: impatience. I was VERY uncomfortable during the meditation. You basically sit quietly and focus on your breath. The instructors were lovely and welcoming and assured me that whatever I felt or thought about was okay—I didn’t have to go “blank.” Good thing, because my mind would whir a million miles a minute, my heart would start pounding with the realization that I’d be sitting there doing nothing for an hour, and sometimes I would think I was on the verge of jumping up and leaving the room…I just couldn’t take the silence and stillness. Ummm, yeah, HELLO! Someone really NEEDS to meditate!

But, I am proud to say that I stuck it out and survived a few sessions (the guided ones went better for me). By the end of the weekend I found myself focusing on my breath whenever blah/scary/anxious/negative thoughts would show up. For example: I expected my period to arrive overnight on Sunday but on Monday morning it was nowhere to be found. Instead of panicking about how this might screw up my hopes of an injects cycle (I leave for a wedding in NYC—and a meet-up with SecretSloper!—on Thursday and need to get baseline monitored before that), I focused on breathing in deeply and exhaling. I did not freak out. I did not even mention to my Mom that I was running behind sked.

I know this sounds like a small thing, but for me it feels like progress. I was so encouraged that I even splurged on a meditation CD that I’m going to load onto my iTunes so I can keep the Zen going back home. I meant what I said in my post last week: I am working hard at not working hard this cycle. If you know what I mean. 🙂

Anyway, my period DID eventually show up yesterday. (It’s just as super-super-super faint as the Provera-induced period in March….I choose to believe that my body wants to hang onto what precious little lining I have for dear life!) Which means I go to baseline monitoring tomorrow. Hopefully I’m just a day away from getting off the bench. Deep. Breaths.

SOS

I have written and deleted a couple of posts since I got back from the wedding. (Which was beautiful, fun and wonderful!) I am pretty tired of complaining on my blog. It’s a beautiful, sunshine-y day in Chicago and I should be telling you all how happy I am to be alive and enjoying my life, even thought I’m not pregnant. I should be greeting all of you with a huge smile and happy post after a week off blogging.

But instead every time I begin typing a post, it comes out whine-y and woe-is-me. I think as my consult with Dr. K approaches I’m getting more and more scared and sad about the state of my life and this TTC situation. I feel hopeless. No, nothing has changed since last time I posted….I’m just afraid this is never going to work. I think the stagnancy of being benched is just eating away at me. It gives me so much time to contemplate a hundred different worse case scenarios.

I had a dream about meeting with Dr. K on Tuesday night. I woke up crying. It has happened a few times this past week.

Here’s what I’m worried about:

1. I’m afraid my cyst won’t be gone when they check for it on Tuesday morning. If it’s still there, and they bench me, it will June at the earliest that I can cycle because of more wedding weekends.

2. I’m afraid Dr. K won’t change Dr. C’s protocol. I’m scared the clinic I’ve entrusted hubs and my life to is going to treat me like a cog in their wheel.

3. I’m scared Dr. K will completely change Dr. C’s protocol. (This poor woman can’t win!) I’m worried that her new course of action will wig me out and that I’ll second guess her.

4. I’m anxious about my lining responding to injects. If it doesn’t, this road just went from rocky and uphill to littered with boulders and completely vertical.

5. I’m afraid the dose they choose for me will be too high and I’ll get overstimmed and canceled on CD8 or CD10 or CD12 or WHENEVER. I’m afraid I will go a fifth month in a row without a chance. (Does December, with 3.2mm lining, even count as a chance? Cuz that’s all I’ve had. Are you sick of me saying that? I can’t get it out of my head.)

6. I’m terrified that even though they can’t find anything wrong with me, I will never conceive and have a baby. Bad lining. Annovulatory. Cyst-prone. Inexplicably infertile and perpetually stuck on the sidelines.

7. I’m scared I won’t be able to pick up the pieces again if 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6 comes true.

I hate that I’m not telling you how wonderful the wedding was and how excited I am for a second opinion next week and how much I love my hubs and how amazing it feels to walk outside at noon on a warm spring day in Chicago. I just want to wake up from this nightmare and be the old me. The one who would’ve written a different blog. I am stressing. I am frustrated. I am scared. I am tired of waiting. I am envious of everyone who is cycling and hoping and making babies and carrying babies and raising babies and living there lives. I hate that I’m not strong, happy, hopeful….

I need a life preserver. I’m barely staying afloat.

Deadlines missed

When we first went off the BCPs I looooooved daydreaming about what month our baby would be born in. I knew the spring and summer of 2010 we’d be on a serious wedding circuit and I wondered which weddings we’d have to miss because I was either a) taking care of a newborn, or b) so knocked up that the doctor would advise me to not be on airplanes.

Time passed and—still hopeful but getting more and more scared—my thoughts morphed into how exciting it would be to see my friends from college while sporting a super pregnant belly and that beautiful pregnant woman–glow.

More time passed and I would think to myself, Well, even if I’m less than 12 weeks and can’t tell anyone, I will have this beautiful secret miracle growing inside me.

Not so much.

Back in October, Dr. C told me we’d do Clomid four times max and then move on. The number-cruncher in me immediately thought, Okay, awesome, we’ll be pregnant by January, or—worst case scenario (ha!)—well on our way! I have normal hormone levels. I’m healthy. There was no reason to think Clomid wouldn’t work.

But it didn’t. And it wasn’t a four-month discovery process. It took eight months. And I’ve only ovulated once. And I’m on the bench. So I don’t even have the HOPE that comes with popping Clomid, or taking injections, or daydreaming during a 2ww. I just have my broken heart, my chubbier body and my missed deadlines.

Tomorrow I leave for Florida for wedding number one in our season of weddings. I know it’ll be a fun weekend celebrating our family and I’m definitely looking forward to getting out of cold and gloomy Chicago. But I have all of these dark thoughts in my heart that make me feel like SUCH a bad person! Even though hubs’s extended family is SUPER nice (they are all from Alabama and have the southern charm to prove it!), I have this very self-centered belief that everyone will be looking at me and wondering why, after 11 years together and 4 years married, hubs and I still don’t have a kid. I’m incredibly anxious that his little brother and wife will get knocked up on their Honeymoon next week. I’m envious of their youth and the distinct possibility that they have zero fertility issues and will have a baby soon. I’m jealous of all the deadlines they don’t know exist and will meet, effortlessly.

This past Saturday while I was out running errands hubs told his Mom what’s been going on with us. She’s a very sensitive, kind woman (and nurse) so I know she was nothing but understanding and supportive. (I am a little worried hubs couched the conversation as “I’m telling you this so you don’t say something weird and make Egg cry” rather than “this has been a huge part of our lives this past year and we thought it was time to share what’s been up with us.” Sigh. That’s me, always the Catholic guilt.) Anyway, I’m glad she knows, because I’m hoping she can protect me from stuff that could be awkward. She told hubs I might want to be aware that one of his cousins is four months pregnant right now (and she’ll be carrying a 1.5 yro and 3 yro on her two hips!). That she thought of that and how it might affect me proves that his Mom probably “gets it.” For that I am very grateful. So hopefully I don’t get seated right next to the cousin at the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night (!). But if I do, it’ll be okay. I’ll congratulate her and leave it at that….I will not be a glutton for punishment and ask her about her registry and how the pregnancy compares to her other two and what his or her name will be and if the nursery is underway. It’s not my job to make pregnant people feel good; I think they should feel pretty darn good as-is! 🙂

It’s going to be an emotional minefield of a weekend, but I am strong and tough and I’m going to make the best of it. And I don’t know if this is a healthy way to think or demented and horrible, but one thing I can count on is that the deadlines will always be there. Maybe we can have a baby while I’m still 31. Or, hey, maybe I can get pregnant while I’m 31. Or before hubs graduates from his program? Or before we leave Chicago?